


Snow Drive

by Spazzo47



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 10:04:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13831890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spazzo47/pseuds/Spazzo47
Summary: Jim drives Mac to the airport in the so she, Will, Brandon and ACN executives can go to the Olympics.   They talk about their lives -- past, present and future.This is for Lilac Mermaid's February Fan fic challenge -- Let's talk about... the weather.





	Snow Drive

**Author's Note:**

> Each time I do a fan fic challenge, I not only like to take on the prompt, but add my own challenge to it so I have to stretch myself. This time I wanted to write about Jim since he's usually just he butt of a joke if I use him at all and I wanted to try my hand at fluff, since I'm starting to appreciate it, but don't know if I can write it. This literally took all month (but it is a short month) to write because I kept going to angsty places, but I think I stayed mostly fluffy.

“Mommy!  Look at me!”

Mac looked from her packing to her almost 4-year-old son and rolled her eyes.  “Your father dressed you, didn’t he?”

“Mommy!  I can dress myself.”

“Of course you can.”  She said, though she stopped herself before saying that he didn’t choose to dress head to toe in Olympics gear.  He would have chosen something more subdued.

Brandon looked back at his father who stood around the corner, signaling him to say something else.  Finally Brandon remembered the line he and Will rehearsed and said, “Oh, and daddy said that you shouldn’t feel guilty for keeping the staff here.”  He looked back at Will to make sure he said it right.  Will smiled and nodded vigorously. 

Mac couldn’t help laughing and shaking her head.  Everyone who saw Brandon said he was an exact duplicate of Will, and when their son tried to act like his father, Mac could only tell them apart by their height and haircut.  “Thank you for delivering your father’s message.”

Brandon looked back outside the door to Will’s encouraging gestures.  “Ummmmmmmm.  Should I tell him anything for you?”

Mac took a second to think.  “No, I think he should come out from the hall and hear what I want to tell him himself.”

Brandon cocked his head to the side and bit his bottom lip.  “Huh?”

“Honey, come in here.”

“How did you know he was out there?”

Will walked quickly into the bedroom with the rest of his family and picked up Brandon, just in case he needed a human shield.  Mac quirked an eyebrow at her husband, knowing what he was trying to do.  “Because mommies know everything.”

Will gave a stage whisper to his son, “She has eyes on the back of her head.”

“No she doesn’t, I looked.”

“They’re closed when you look for them.”

Brandon looked at his father, considering what he said.  He seemed satisfied with the answer.

“Will, you better start packing anything you want to bring.  You were the one that insisted you needed to anchor News Night from Pyeongchang and then went over my head to make sure it happened.”

“You were going for that executive retreat, I thought it would be a good opportunity for Brandon to have a multicultural experience.  And give us a chance for a vacation.”

Mac looked at her son, still being held by his much larger doppelgänger.  “Brandon, go to your room and make sure you didn’t forget anything you want to take.”  Brandon started squirming away from Will, who reluctantly put him down.  When Mac was satisfied that Brandon was out of earshot, she closed the bedroom door and said, “What the fuck kind of vacation do you think it will be with you anchoring from just outside the games and me running a crew that doesn’t speak the same language I do while attending meetings with people twice my age with names like Hoyt.”

“The Hoyts will not make you go to many meetings, they’re there to watch the games on the company’s dime.  And, you speak three languages.  You can pick up Korean.”  Will started laughing at the look of pure death that Mac gave him.  “Besides, it’s a tribute to Charlie.  We always talked about covering sports.”

Mac stared at her husband with her mouth open.  “No you didn’t!  You said it once and it lasted for about 2 minutes until you had to save Neal by going to prison.  And I still haven’t forgiven you for that.”

“What?  That’s when we got married and made a kid!  It was a great time in our life!”

“What the fuck are you talking about?  It was 52 days without you.  That’s what happens when you go off on one of your hair brained ideas without consulting me!”

Will put his arms around her and held her close.  “We needed some time to get away, right?”  Mac nodded her head.  “And I really, really believe that being in a control room will do you a lot of good.”

“I know.”

Will kissed the top of her head.  “And, this will let you see that you can let people here run things so you can take a break.  And we’ll be able to cheer on our team as a family.”

Mac pulled away from Will a little.  “Our team?  I’m going to be rooting for Great Britain!”

Will shook his head.  “Are they even going to be there?”

“Yes, they have a team.  And they’re going to beat the Americans with impunity.”

Will laughed.  “Well, if they get any gold, I’ll be singing the Star-Spangled Banner and you can sing God Save the Queen.  Have you ever wondered why the two countries have the same tune for the national anthem?  That’s the first thing I would have changed.”

“I guess that’s one more reason to be glad you weren’t a founding father.”  Mac looked at her watch.  “Can you finish up here and get Brandon to the airport?  I want to stop by the office before meeting the rest of the exec staff.”

Will looked her confused.  “Mac, they’re going to be fine.  I promise.”

“I know, but I set a meeting for a final check and I need to be there for it.”

Will looked at the clock.  “Are you sure you can make it to the airport in time?  The weather is supposed to get bad.”

“I’ll get there. Just make sure that Brandon runs around the block a few times so he’s nice and tired on the plane.”

Will let go of his wife. “Oh, now I get it.  You’re going to Starbucks while I have to wear out the boy.”

Mac gave Will a kiss on the cheek before stopping by Brandon’s room.  “I’m going to meet you and daddy at the airport.  Make sure that he takes you running.”  She shot Will a dirty look on her way out.

“OK, Mommy.”

^^^ ^^^ ^^^

Mac looked around the conference room at the faces of her executive producers, who all looked bored.  None of them wanted to say what they thought, that they had never experienced a more pointless meeting in their entire lives, up to and including the 8-hour OSHA training they don’t understand why they take every year.  As she looked at Jim and Don she realized she sat in their seats not that long ago and would have hated this meeting about as much as they do.  Except she didn’t sit through this type of gargantuan waste of time because Charlie had the wisdom to trust his people. 

“Okay, unless there’s a question that you just have to ask, go on and get back to work.”

Everyone immediately got up and she may have heard a couple people say “thank God” under their breath.  She put her head down to chide herself.  She could have listened to Will and driven to the airport with her family instead of coming here to give instructions that she could have written in an email.  When she looked up, she saw Jim watching her. 

“Jim, what are you still doing here?”

“I don’t have a show tonight, so I’m not in a hurry.”  Jim gave her a charming smile and Mac rolled her eyes. 

“Will told you to make sure I get to the airport safely.”

Jim laughed lightly.  “It’s snowing pretty bad.”

Mac started to protest, but instead she said, “get your coat, my suitcase is already in the car.”

“You didn’t leave it with Will?”

“Do you really think I trust him to bring something he calls the shoecase?”

As they walked out of the conference room on the 44th floor, Jim asked, “Now, explain to me again why you don’t have a driver?”

“Pruitt wouldn’t put it in my contract.  He said he was already paying for Will to have one, he didn’t need a second one for Will’s wife.  So, I got an extra week of vacation instead.”

“Sounds like a fair trade.”

Mac smiled at the young man.  He’s come a long way, they both have.  When she met him, he had just finished college and had the scrawny look of a high schooler.  They made it through 3 years of Middle East coverage and she felt like she saw him turn into a man.  When she got the opportunity to come here, she couldn’t think of a person she wanted to bring with her more than him.  So she did.  And now he took over for her, doing all the important things she thought she’d do for the rest of her life. 

As they exited the elevator, she said, “You don’t need to play chauffer.  You know as well as I do that I would have driven some of those Humvees if the government didn’t restrict it to enlisted men.”

“You sure Matthews wasn’t just hoping you would run over someone?”

Mac and Jim laughed as they got into the car.  Jim pulled out of the garage and saw for the first time how fast the snow came down.  In New York, they don’t expect to see a lot of snow pile up because the subway system keeps the ground warm, but he thought they may have some trouble today.  He looked at Mac, “You’re taking a company plane, right?”

“Don’t think you can get us there on time, Harper?  I can drive myself.”

“I’ll do fine. Besides Will would kill me if I let you drive.”

“For God’s sake, I’m just as good a driver as either of you.”

Jim smiled at how quickly she could always get so upset about the smallest things.  “I like to think that he trusts me with the most important thing in his life.”

Mac always appreciated Jim’s ability to disarm her.  As long as she’s known Will, they could fight and bicker about anything.  Both times she moved in with him she was convinced he perpetuated the toilet roll wars just because he couldn’t imagine a world where they didn’t fight.  But Jim always had a way about him that just calmed everything.  He could always see the best in everyone and every situation.  She admired that about him. 

“You’re a good man, Jim.  I hope that Maggie appreciates that.”  Mac thought for a second.  She realized that she hasn’t seen Maggie at all in a few months.  Since taking the presidency, she hasn’t had any work reasons to talk to her former protégé.  The two couples have gone out a few times when she’s in town, but that happens less and less frequently as schedules get filled up.  “How is Maggie?”

Jim smiled proudly.  “She’s doing great.  She covers the White House full time now and she loves it.  I can barely pull her from DC anymore.  She misses it here, she misses the old team, as she calls us.  But I think she’s realizing that we’re all kind of moving away.”

Mac felt a tinge of confusion.  As far as she knew, everyone still worked for ACN.  Jim became the News Night EP and Kendra took over as Senior Producer.  Martin went to dayside and Gary was the senior for Sloane’s early evening show where Tess and Jenna landed.  As she went through the list she realized how many changes Jim’s staff went through in the last few years.  “So is this where you ask me if there’s a way to transfer to DC?”

“I don’t know.  I’ve thought about it, but… I keep thinking that I don’t want to leave News Night.  I’m the executive producer of the flagship show on the network.  And I kind of wish that Maggie understood how important that is to me.  I mean, if we get married, I want to be able to support our family and even on a midday or morning salary, I guess I probably could.  But I like what I’m doing.  I like hard news and making a statement about the integrity of what we do and what we can be.  I don’t know if I can do that in another slot.”

“You’re thinking about marriage?”

Jim looked at Mac with surprise.  “We’ve been together for 3 years.  Even you and Will got together after three years… and you weren’t even dating.”

Mac laughed and saw Jim’s grin.  “That was a little different.  Will actually wanted to get married the first time.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

Mac fake laughed and hoped Jim didn’t pick up on it.  The ring.  She tried to keep that episode to herself, but Sloane saw her upset.  They went for drinks that night and Sloane waited for her to drink too much and that marked the beginning of everyone hearing that Will had her ring locked in his desk.  They talked about that episode during their first serious conversation as an engaged couple.  “Well, there’s a little more to that story.”

“Oh God, please don’t tell me.  I _really_ don’t want to know.”

Mac felt a flood of relief at his words.  “I had no intention.  Now keep your eyes on the road.  It’s snowing.”

The pair sat in companiable silence for a few minutes.  Finally Jim asked,  “Do you still think about our time in Afghanistan?”

Mac leaned back further into the passenger seat.  “I try not to.  How about you?”

“I think it was different for me.  I wasn’t there to serve a penance.”

“No, you were just trying to be like your brother.”

Jim smiled.  “How long have you known about Tim?”

“We had to run a background check on you before you could go.  They flagged that and asked if I still wanted you.  Have you told Maggie?”

“Told her what, that when I was 17, my 21-year-old brother got blown up by an IED, so I looked for any way I could to get there?”

Mac took a turn smiling at him.  Jim didn’t lose his even-keel nature often, but she liked the reminder that he has clay feet too.  “Well, that or anything really.”

“She knows that Tim was my brother and he died a hero.  I’ve told her a few things about him.  How he taught me to play basketball –”

“God, I hope he was better than you!”

“He took my high school to state.  Set me up for failure.”  The two laughed.  “I wanted to do everything just like him.  Now, I can only hope that his life would have turned out to be half as good as mine.”  Mac watched Jim as he thought.  “What do you tell Will about our time there?”

Mac bit her lip.  She came to peace with the answer to this question, but she didn’t know how to explain to anyone else.  “We don’t talk about it much.  He knows the basics.  He’s seen my pictures and heard about midnight poker and some of the weekend leaves.  Obviously, he’s seen the scar.”

“But he doesn’t ask?”

Mac took a deep breath.  “I don’t know if he can handle it.  Or maybe I can’t.  I don’t blame him for what happened.  I made the decision to stay there instead of going back and finding a new job.  But I think he blames himself for me being in danger.”  She looked at Jim, hoping his face would let her know that he got it, but at times like this, he had a poker face that would challenge anyone in their unit.  “Will has always played the role of protector.  He takes it hard when he can’t protect someone he loves.  When I told him about the stabbing, he looked sick.  I didn’t want to do that to him again.”

He didn’t just look sick.  He got sick.  And then he had nightmares for a few nights.  He’s a stubborn ass, so he refused to admit that’s what happened, but she has seen him during and after nightmares often enough that she could tell.  When she’s shown him pictures from that time, he sits and listens, but she knows him well enough that he wants to be anywhere else.  It never offended her or put her off, she knew that it didn’t come from disinterest or unsupportiveness, but from the guilt that he still holds for that time.  Guilt she wants to acquit him of, but he won’t let her. 

Jim looked at his boss and saw regret in her face.  He didn’t want to stir that in her, so he decided to change the subject.  “So, what sports will the McAvoys be seeing in the next few weeks?”

“Will is convinced we’re going to see another Miracle on Ice, so he’s planning to watch as many US Hockey games as possible.  Brandon saw some people with snowboards, so I expect Will to sneak Brandon to some of those events too.”

“Sneak him?”

“I do not want my son inspired to do something stupid on a snowboard.  He already looks like Will, he doesn’t need act as stupid as him too.”

Jim gave her a big laugh.  The two sat back again.  Jim looked at her and thought about how much he’s missed this.  They became friends through work, but they experienced so many life changing things together that they were more than that.  The two talked on and off throughout the rest of the slow drive to the airport.  Jim walked Mac as far into the airport as he could, shaking Will’s hand when he met them Inside.  Mac watched, thankful that these two men have obviously brokered a respect for each other. 

Several hours later, Mac and Will reclined together on the ACN jet watching something on a TV screen.  Mac didn’t pay attention to it and didn’t think Will did either.  Brandon fell asleep soon after boarding the plane, but before he did, he ran the rest of the executives to another part of it.  Mac turned her head to look at Will’s face.  “You know, I never blamed you.”

Will jerked his head back and gave her a confused look.  “Thanks?”

“I was talking to Jim about Afghanistan and, I just want you to know that I never blamed you for me being there.  I made that my decision and honestly I don’t regret it.”

When Mac said “Afghanistan”, Will reflexively became rigid and then forced himself to look at her.  “That doesn’t… I was supposed… I was the one that said he wanted to go.”

“I know.  But you also couldn’t have, because I needed to find myself and then find a way back to you.  And I made it, Will.  I survived the war, I matured into a person who does deserve you, and we found our way back to each other.”

Will didn’t know what to say.  He nodded his head and put her head back against his chest. 

^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^

Jim called Maggie that night after the last report she had to file.  “It’s weird talking to you this early without having a bunch of equipment around me.”

Jim smiled.  “Do you wish that it was different?”

Maggie giggled.  “Different how?”

Jim shrugged his shoulders.  “I’ve been thinking about us and I think there may be a way for me to transfer to an afternoon or evening show in DC.  What would you think about something like that?”

Maggie was surprised.  “Give up News Night?  You would do that for me?”

Jim answered without hesitation, “Absolutely.  I’d have to talk to Mac, but she kind of suggested it.  And if I can’t transfer, I still have contacts at CNN.”

“Yes, YES.  I would love to have you here.  But why now?  What happened that made you think about this now?”

Jim thought about it for a second.  “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.  But when I talked to Mac, I realized that I don’t want to have any regrets or distance from you.  I think it’s time.”


End file.
